I had an inkling I wouldn’t make it to work today when last night the rains that were supposed to come and wash away the snow didn’t arrive. Instead, it continued to snow and that new snow fell on top of the snow that still was here even after more than a week. Snow in Vancouver is an oddity but for snow to linger on the ground is even stranger.
When I woke up I saw the streets were lined with another fresh sheet of white. A quick look on social media showed the morning commute was a mess. I rely on the train and a bus to get to work and both were delayed to differing degrees. Usually the train is more dependable than the bus because the weather affects the trains less. Then just as I was about to get up to get dressed, I saw a report that police had shot a man with a sharp weapon in one of the train stations. They had to close the station and more importantly, stop the trains from going to that station in either direction. What was minor delays in the train system would now be significant delays.
On the bus front, the GPS map of the route I need to take showed no buses going in the direction towards work. Going in the other direction were four buses all stuck in the same place on the map, near the base of a steep hill. So even if I could get to the bus, there would be none to take. I could only imagine the line up that was forming for the buses that weren’t coming.
As I contemplated what to do, I was relieved to know that I could at least work from home using VPN. Alas, even that wasn’t going to work today. I checked my work e-mail with my phone and the power had been knocked out at the studio for a short while. It was back on now but that meant my computer at work would have shut down and it wouldn’t have powered back on automatically. It needed to be on so I could connect to it remotely. Someone had to physically push the power button on my computer to bring it back up. Unfortunately, with the holiday vacation starting for some co-workers, others stuck in traffic, or like me stuck at home, I didn’t know who made it into work so I could ask them to press that one button.
Without any other options, I just went back to bed. Hours later, I got a hold of one co-worker who miraculously made it into work. He was able to power up my computer so I could at least get a tiny bit of work done before the end of the day.
The rains finally came this evening so while I don’t expect a perfect commute tomorrow, I think at least I’ll be able to make it into work.